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Showing posts from December, 2008

My Chennai Diary 2008 - 25thDec - part2

The next concert we attended was of Hyderabad brothers at ParthasArathi Sabha. Some details for those who didn't read my blog last year. This sabha was founded in 1900 and is the oldest music Sabha in Madras. It seems to be caught in a time warp - old auditorium, tall fans, not too great acoustics . Wonderful pictures of Lord Parthasarathy at the venue. Vocal: Hyderabad Brothers Violin: S. Varadarajan Mridangam: Karaikudi Mani Khanjira: N Amrith 01. kanjadalAyadAkshi - kamalAmanOhari - Dikshithar - Adi - Crisp rendition. 02. samayamidE nannu brOva (S @ pallavi) - kEdAram - MDR? - rUpakam 03. nI paramA nAma (sketch, S @ pallavi) - Ananda bhairavi - St. Thyagaraja- Adi 04. sogasujUda tharamA - kannada gowLa - St. Thyagaraja- rUpakam 05. pAmarajana pAlini (R, N @ kAmikAntha paladAyini, S) - simmhEndramadhyamam - Dikshithar - rUpakam 06. palukuTEchE palamEni (short sketch) - phalamanjari - St. Thyagaraja- rUpakam 07. vidajAlathurA - janaranjani - Ad

My Chennai Diary 2008 - 26th Dec - part1

We had decided to meet up at the Music Academy at 8.30 to pick up daily tickets for Bombay Jayashree's concert. We bought the tickets and realised that even if had arrived 10 mins later than we did,all the tickets would have been sold out. Bombay sisters were singing at the Academy in the morning. Listened to their Ritigowla and found their voices pleasant ( after a long long time. ) Met my friend KumAran from Charsur Digital Workstation and he talked about Sanjay's concert at Krisha GAna Sabha being excellent. I bought the new Paddhati CDs of Sangeeta KalAnidhi Palakkad KVNarayanaswamy which contained a Navaratri Mandapam concert of his (all Swathi Tirunal compositions.) We then went to Bharat KalAchar to listen to veteran vocalist Parassala B PonnamAL. (Excerpt from an earlier blog post of mine : Parassala PonnamALis one of Semmagudi SrinivasIyer's senior disciples and blessed with a rich, deep and sweet voice which belies her age. (She is almost 85) My grandma was an a

My Chennai Diary 2008 - 25thDec - part1

I was in Chennai last weekend for attending Carnatic music concerts during the December season, 2008. We left from Bangalore on 24th December and reached Madras (aka Chennai) on 25th morning. I'd taken along printouts of the concert schedules from 25th to 28th. As in 2007, I had a tough time deciding on which concerts to attend as various Sabhas host concerts of front ranking artistes simultaneously. I was slightly sad that I couldn't attend any concerts of Vijay Shiva and Vedavalli mami as they had no concerts scheduled during this time-frame. The first concert I attended was at The Madras Music Academy.The Music Academy auditorium named after TTKrishnamachari has excellent acoustics with Bose Speaker systems and paintings of Purandaradasa , the Trinity and Swathi Tirunal by S.RAjam adorn its walls. Prof. T.N.Krishnan was scheduled to play at 9.15 AM and arrived at the venue a little late. He was accompanied on the violin by his daughter Viji Krishnan and son Sriram Krishnan